Peace Requires a Two-State Solution: A Glimpse of Hope in Yair Golan
By M. Basheer Ahmed, M.D, New Age Islam
21 February 2026
President Trump's Gaza peace plan offers a rare and urgent opportunity to end one of the most devastating conflicts of our time. Yet to achieve a just and lasting peace, this fragile ceasefire must be irrevocably paired with a genuine commitment to restore dignity to Palestinians through a two-state solution—one that recognizes full Palestinian sovereignty alongside a secure Israel.
When Hamas launched its brutal assault on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing over 1,200 civilians and seizing more than 250 hostages, I joined countless others in condemning that atrocity. Yet Israel's response has transcended the boundaries of legitimate self-defense. What followed was not a targeted operation to liberate hostages or neutralize combatants, but an indiscriminate campaign that has trapped Gaza's 2.3 million residents—half of them children—without access to food, clean water, or medical care.
According to Gaza health authorities, more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed—half of them women and children. No modern conflict has witnessed such a proportion of child casualties. The Lancet estimated that by June 2024, 186,000 civilians had perished—a figure that has since grown. Gaza's hospitals, schools, mosques, and administrative centers lie in rubble. Two million residents have been displaced. Famine and disease spread as humanitarian convoys are blocked at borders.
The genocidal intent has been explicit. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the biblical Amalekites—ancient enemies of Israel deserving total extermination. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called Gazans "human animals" while ordering a complete siege. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared starvation "just and moral." Doctors Without Borders documented children shot in the head by snipers. These are not the accidental tragedies of war—they are deliberate acts of annihilation.
Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister recently wrote in Haaretz “A violent and criminal effort is underway to ethnically cleanse territories in the West Bank, Gangs of armed settlers are physically assaulting, and even killing Palestinians living there. The rioters, the Jewish terrorists, storm Palestinians with hate and violence with one objective: to force them to flee from their homes. All this is done in the hopes that the land will then be prepared for Jewish settlement, to realizing the dream of annexing all the territories.”
The United States, despite its moral and strategic influence, has repeatedly vetoed UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire. At a United Nations special conference on the Gaza crisis, world leaders reaffirmed that there will be no sustainable peace without two states. Yet American paralysis has enabled what many human rights observers now describe as genocide. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated in Munich Germany: “the idea of completely unconditional aid, to Israel, no matter what one does, does not make sense. I think it enabled a genocide in Gaza.”
From Holocaust to Occupation
I still remember my years at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York (1971-1976), where Jewish colleagues shared stories of the Holocaust with unwavering commitment to justice and human dignity. They hoped those horrors would never darken our world again.
It is profoundly heartbreaking that a people once persecuted with unimaginable cruelty now preside over a humanitarian catastrophe. The same nation that vowed "Never Again" now prosecutes policies that former President Jimmy Carter rightly labeled "apartheid." For nearly 80 years, Palestinians have lived as a stateless people under what Israeli human rights organizations describe as a "deeply discriminatory dual legal and political system."
Carter observed that Israel's settlement expansion, separation wall, and segregated road and identification systems created domination "far worse" than apartheid South Africa. These policies contradict the Jewish ethical principles they purport to defend and violate international law. As Canadian Palestinian scholar Diana Butto notes, the Israeli logic remains tragically circular: "Nothing justifies Hamas's attack on October 7, but genocide is justified because of that attack."
A Framework for Peace
The two-state solution remains the only framework offering justice and security for both peoples. I propose a detailed roadmap: establish a unified Palestinian government across the West Bank and Gaza, supported by moderate Gulf states and Western powers. For an initial period of three to five decades, Palestine would remain demilitarized, with United Nations peacekeeping forces securing borders and ensuring Israel's security. International partners would finance critical infrastructure, educational institutions, hospitals, and economic development.
This model has precedent. Postwar Germany and Japan rebuilt under international oversight and emerged as thriving, peaceful democracies. With dignity and self-determination, Palestinians can build a stable society. With security guarantees and diplomatic engagement, Israelis can live in peace.
Six months ago, before the ceasefire, I published "The Collapse of Conscience: Gaza, Genocide, and the Silence of the World," questioning whether humanity still possesses the will to prevent atrocity. As Hannah Arendt warned, "The death of human empathy is one of the earliest signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism."
Yair Golan: A Voice Against the Tide
I remained disheartened because even after the ceasefire, the killing continued—more than 500 Palestinians have died since the truce began, according to Gaza's health ministry. Then a recent New York Times profile offered something precious: evidence that conscience still lives within Israel. Yair Golan—decorated soldier, former deputy chief of the general staff, and now leader of the Democrats, a newly formed left-wing alliance—has emerged as the only Jewish party leader fighting to keep the two-state solution alive.
Golan's credentials as a security hawk make his transformation all the more significant. After four decades of military service, including commanding operations in Lebanon and Gaza, he has arrived at what he calls a "cruel truth": "peace is the ultimate security." This is not the language of naive idealism but of hard-won military wisdom—the realization that no amount of force can provide lasting security without justice.
Following October 7, 2023, Golan argues, Israel was seized by a "national psychosis" for revenge. In a radio interview last year, he declared that "a sane country does not fight against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby," carefully directing his criticism at Netanyahu's government policies, not Israeli soldiers. He maintains the war could have ended with a hostage-release deal as early as February 2024, "when we defeated Hamas's military force." Thousands of Palestinian and hundreds of Israeli soldiers' lives could have been spared.
Golan has shown extraordinary moral courage in condemning not only Gaza's devastation but also settler violence in the West Bank. He has openly criticized Jewish settlers who attack Palestinian villages and kill civilians—a position that has made him a pariah among Israel's right-wing majority. He decries the Palestinian death toll and insists on Israel's duty to facilitate humanitarian aid to Gaza, even as his political opponents brand him a traitor.
His political challenge is formidable. According to a 2025 Gallup poll, only one-quarter of Israelis support a two-state solution—the constituency Golan must mobilize. He faces Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, which dominates Israeli politics through fear and nationalism, and far-right coalition partners like Itamar Ben-Gvir who advocate permanent occupation and annexation.
Yet Golan presses forward with a strategy that echoes Yitzhak Rabin, the bellicose general-turned-peacemaker who recognized that only painful territorial compromise could ensure Israel's long-term security. Golan hopes that the three leading center-left parties will merge to become Israel's largest opposition force, offering Israelis an alternative vision: security through peace, not endless war.
Most remarkably, Golan has expressed willingness to form a coalition government with Mansour Abbas, an Islamist party leader who advocates peaceful coexistence between Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel. Golan called Abbas "more of a patriot than Itamar Ben-Gvir," the far-right minister in Netanyahu's cabinet. This willingness to build bridges across the deepest divides demonstrates genuine commitment to coexistence, not mere political calculation.
The Battle for Israel's Soul
Golan's significance extends far beyond electoral politics. He represents a struggle for Israel's moral identity—a battle between those who believe security comes through domination and those who recognize it requires justice. In a political landscape where extremism has become mainstream, where cabinet ministers openly advocate genocide and settlement expansion accelerates daily, Golan stands as living proof that another Israel is possible.
His warning is particularly prophetic. "I think what is happening now with this government is that it is providing a wide platform for anti-Semites all over the world," he has said. By conflating Israeli government policy with Judaism, itself, Netanyahu's government endangers Jews everywhere, turning Israel from a refuge into a liability for global Jewish communities.
Golan's journey from decorated general to peace advocate mirrors a broader transformation that Israel desperately needs. Like Rabin before him—who was assassinated by a right-wing extremist for pursuing the Oslo Accords—Golan understands that the greatest threat to Israeli security is not external enemies but internal moral collapse. A nation that loses its ethical compass, that normalizes the dehumanization of an entire people, that mistakes cruelty for strength, cannot survive as a democracy.
Hamas grew in strength due Netanyahu’s long efforts to prop up Hamas with Qatari money so the Palestinian leadership would always be divided between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Netanyahu used the excuse that he had no unified Palestinian peace partner to negotiate with
The obstacles are immense. Netanyahu has spent decades constructing a political fortress built on fear, religious nationalism, and the perpetual enemy. The Israeli right has successfully convinced many citizens that any compromise represents existential surrender. Golan's Democrats face not just political opposition but a fundamental crisis of Israeli identity.
Yet Golan persists, and his persistence matters. In a moment when the international community has largely abandoned Palestinians to their fate, when American politicians offer unconditional support for Israeli actions, when the machinery of occupation grinds forward unchecked, Golan proves that moral courage has not been entirely extinguished in Israeli politics. He demonstrates that security establishment figures—those with the deepest knowledge of the conflict—can arrive at conclusions diametrically opposed to the current government's path.
For Palestinians watching from Gaza's ruins or the West Bank's shrinking enclaves, Golan offers something rare: evidence that not all Israelis have embraced the logic of permanent domination. For Israelis exhausted by endless conflict, bereaved by October 7, and anxious about their children's futures, he offers a different path—one that promises genuine security through peace rather than the illusion of safety through overwhelming force.
Whether Golan succeeds politically is almost beside the point. His willingness to speak uncomfortable truths, to challenge the national consensus, to insist that Israeli policy is fueling rather than fighting antisemitism—this moral clarity matters regardless of electoral outcomes. In the tradition of Israeli peace advocates from Rabin to the members of Breaking the Silence, Golan keeps alive the possibility of an Israel that honors its founding democratic ideals rather than betraying them.
History will judge not just what Israel does to Palestinians, but whether Israelis themselves found the courage to resist their government's worst impulses. Golan's emergence in this dark hour offers a glimpse of hope—not that peace is imminent, but that the moral resources for peace still exist within Israeli society. The question is whether enough Israelis will find the courage to follow where he leads, before the window for a two-state solution closes forever and both peoples are condemned to endless cycles of violence, occupation, and despair.
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M. Basheer Ahmed, M.D., is a psychiatrist and community advocate who has written extensively on the Middle East conflict and humanitarian crises. He is the former professor of Psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical School.
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